2005-05-29 04:00:00 PDT Changsha , China -- Three young female singers, just weeks removed from anonymity and more mundane lives, were standing on stage in front of a restive, noisy crowd of 1,000 people and a television audience of as many as 25 million more, all of them eager to learn which singer had won the right to advance to the national finals.

Li Xiang -- who as host is the Ryan Seacrest of China -- set up the dramatic moment on one of the most popular entertainment shows on Chinese television today, seen by a staggering 210 million people since it first aired early last year.

"Super Girl" is not quite identical to "American Idol," given that the Chinese show has sold its name to a dairy company, restricts contestants to only women and has almost impenetrably complex rules for winnowing down contestants -- which helps explain why the recent regional finale went on for three hours.

But the phenomenon is the same: The program has become a national spectacle. Now in its second season, "Super Girl," modeled closely after "American Idol" and its British predecessor, "Pop Idol," is the first nationally broadcast show of its kind in China, where the government owns all television stations and controls what goes on the air.

Change tends to come slowly to Chinese television, which still serves as the most effective propaganda arm of the government, with a widely watched national nightly newscast and politically correct programming.

Sports and entertainment shows are not immune from political considerations: propaganda officials seek content that casts the nation's favored stars and, of course, the government in a positive light; conversely, the handful of athletes or entertainers who fall out of favor with the government may find themselves suddenly invisible in prime time.

In this somewhat antiseptic environment, "Super Girl" has tapped a rich, previously unexploited interest in reality shows that portends more such shows to come, if state censors and government television executives decide to allow anything beyond a singing contest.

"It is so close to the audience. It's a program that all people can get involved in, and before there was not such a program in the mainland," said An Youqi, 21, a native of remote northeastern China who won last year's inaugural season and has since recorded an album that sold more than 1 million copies. She returned to "Super Girl" to be a guest host on a recent show.

"Super Girl" has given every young girl in China -- the daughters of farmers, migrant workers, coal miners or low-level government workers in far- flung provinces -- a chance, however slim, of becoming a star. More than 100, 000 women and girls, from ages 4 to 89, will have competed by the time five cities have hosted regional competitions this year.

Unlike "American Idol," where contestants from all around the United States end up competing against each other for the chance of being in a final field of 12, "Super Girl" holds regional competitions in different cities. Each of this year's five regional winners automatically move on to the national finals, and all of the regional second- and third-place finishers will compete again for a second chance to reach the finals.

Such complexity can be viewed as part of the show's charm. In what is billed as a populist move, for example, the show also chooses 31 citizens reflecting different parts of society to serve as "audience judges" in each region.

They sit quietly on bleachers behind the three or four professional judges during the show, until called to the stage to help decide who to eliminate from competition.

The professional judges, meanwhile, vary from region to region and don't have the distinct personalities of their American counterparts, though they do become minor celebrities.

Their remarks can have a distinctly Chinese flavor. In the finale last week here in Changsha -- the capital of Hunan Province -- one contestant dressed up like singer Avril Lavigne, with heavy blue eye shadow, a gothic- black faux corset top and lacy white skirt, and performed Lavigne's "Take Me Away."

Judge Cang Yanbin, the record producer for last year's winner, was dismayed.

"You chose another English song for the finale," Cang said to the contestant, Huang Jing, a college sophomore from Hunan. "You should trust the charm of the mother tongue."

Huang was relegated to the bottom two of the four remaining contestants by text-message voting during the show -- the other two were "safe," following the familiar "Idol" parlance. And the Lavigne emulator was eliminated for good by a 22-9 vote by the audience judges.

The final three then sang songs chosen for them. But in another twist, each woman had to pick one of the others to sing both with and against, and they held hands as they competed against each other.

Seventeen-year-old Zhao Jingyi, who eventually won, was chosen by both of the other contestants to accompany them, so she had the most time on stage. As the girls sang, four silhouetted dancers moved to the music behind the stage; after many of the songs, these dancers would strain to freeze their silhouetted positions while the judges gave their reviews.

Finally, the text-message tallies for Zhao and the two other contestants were revealed one digit at a time. The rowdy audience and the contestants' families and friends, who spent much of the three hours rattling noisemakers, blowing whistles or holding signs for their favored singers, cheered for every digit.

Zhao received more than 100,000 text-message votes during the show to win easily. The daughter of a provincial-level police officer, Zhao was now on a different career path than her father's.

"Super Girl" contestants are not promised recording contracts if they win, but last year's top three finishers have all been signed to such deals. And third-place finisher Zhang Hanyun, a high school student from southwestern China's Sichuan Province, became the face of the Mongolian Cow dairy's Sour Sour yogurt that now sponsors the show.

Before "Super Girl" came along, Zhang had been an "ordinary girl," a daughter of government workers, but she had dreamed of being a star. She admired Chinese pop singers but also Mariah Carey, though she didn't understand the lyrics of her songs. "As soon as I learned the concept of a star, I wanted to be one."

What remains to be seen is whether Chinese television will allow common people a chance to become stars in other ways, like America's quasi- celebrities spawned by shows like "Survivor."

Hunan Satellite Television, famous in China for its entertainment programming, would be the logical place to launch a Chinese "Survivor." But if it were up to Liao Ke, one of the program designers behind "Super Girl," that wouldn't be the case. The 29-year-old, who has seen the show, said it may not be appropriate for China.